Social Democratic Party of Flensburg

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The Social Democratic Party of Flensburg (SPF, Danish Socialdemokratisk Parti Flensborg ) was a pro-Danish split from the SPD , which played a decisive role in Flensburg's city ​​policy from 1946 to 1954 .

history

Part of (southern) Schleswig within the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig and Holstein until the German-Danish War

After the capitulation , which ended the Second World War in Europe on May 8, 1945 , a district association of the Social Democratic Party of Germany was founded in Flensburg in August 1945 . The British military government approved the district association on January 4, 1946. At the hearing, the board had stated that the border issue was not a party matter, but had to be decided personally by each member.

In the Schleswig region (in the southern part of the historic Duchy of Schleswig ) in Schleswig-Holstein there was a strong Danish movement which called for the region to be annexed to Denmark or at least to be separated from Holstein. This new movement consisted mainly of native people from southern Schleswig who followed the oath policy of the Danish national liberals . The movement was also echoed in large parts of the re-established local SPD , which thus came into conflict with the Schleswig-Holstein party leadership. The particularists also came into conflict with the supra-regional SPD organization that formed in the western zones of occupation under Kurt Schumacher .

Although the pro-Danish attitude of the Flensburg Social Democrat Hermann Olson was well known, the delegates of the first district party conference, which took place on March 10, 1946 in Neumünster , elected him as an assessor on the district executive committee. The party congress elected Wilhelm Kuklinski as chairman .

On Friday, July 5, 1946, there was a general meeting in the Flensburg trade union building, attended by board members Andreas Gayk , Karl Ratz and Heinrich Fischer from Kiel . The draft resolution with the following excerpts was up for discussion and vote:

The social democratic district association Flensburg-Stadt refuses to put pressure on its members in terms of national politics. Rather, it leaves each party member free to decide freely in terms of national policy at their own discretion ... A final settlement of the South Schleswig question can only be made on the basis of the right of self-determination of the border residents through a referendum, after which the economic delimitation of the year 1920 can be corrected. "

With a majority of votes (386 against 96), the resolution was adopted by the party assembly. The official reaction, however, followed just two days later on Sunday, July 7, 1946, at a public rally in Husum by chairman Kurt Schumacher . He said:

"With the consent and agreement of the district executive of the Social Democratic Party of Schleswig-Holstein, I declare, as the first chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, that the Social Democratic Association of Flensburg is hereby dissolved and is being re-established. The reasoning used to operate is simply pathetic ... We do not care when this country was once Danish. Today it is German according to the feelings of its inhabitants and the folklore of its inhabitants ... You (the founders of the SPF) sat down outside whole rows of chairs. "

For the local elections on October 13, 1946, the SPF had concluded an election agreement with the Sydslesvigsk Forening (SSF) , which regulated the candidate list. Of the 39 seats in the new Flensburg council, the joint list of SSF and SPF received a total of 33 seats, whereas the SPD only had 2 seats.

But despite initial successes, it became clear that the social democracy in Denmark treated the SPF in a distant manner over the years, although the Social Democratic Party of Flensburg worked closely with the Danish-oriented SSW in the eight years of its existence .

The efforts u. a. The mayor of Schleswig , Hermann Clausen , to build up a Danish-oriented social democratic party in the rest of southern Schleswig , failed, however, due to the British occupation forces. One of the political successes of the SPF was the awarding of the office of mayor of Flensburg to Friedrich Drews from 1950 to 1955.

With a view to the upcoming federal election in 1953 , the two party politicians Hans Hedtoft and Erich Ollenhauer succeeded in re- emphasizing the binding significance of the Kiel Declaration , which the state government had made on September 29, 1949 , in March 1953 . On the basis of this declaration, both parties wanted to appear together in Schleswig-Holstein for the federal election. At the district party convention in July 1954, the SPF finally reunited with the SPD . However, some of its members switched to the SSW .

literature

  • WL Christiansen : My story of the Social Democratic Party in Flensburg. Social Democrats between German and Danish 1945-1954 . Editor: Johann Runge. Publisher: Studieafdelingen at the Dansk Centralbibliotek for Sydslesvig, Flensburg 1993 ISBN 87-89178-12-2 .

See also

source

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christiansen: My story. P. 26.
  2. ↑ Ibid., P. 43.
  3. ↑ Ibid., P. 58.
  4. ↑ Ibid., P. 61f.
  5. ↑ Ibid., P. 72ff.
  6. ↑ Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung v. March 14, 1953, No. 62, no p.
  7. ↑ Jensen u. Rickers: Andreas Gayk . Neumünster 1974, p. 249.